Kenai attorney Blaine Gilman was appointed the trustee attorney for Mysing's cases.

Gilman said it has been a demanding task, and he's still working on contacting all of Mysing's clients. But he's confident the transition will be taken care of as soon as possible, estimating it should take several weeks.

"What this (process) does do is it doesn't leave clients in a lurch," Gilman said.

It starts with sending formal letters to Mysing's clients.

"We explain that Mr. Mysing has died and that they are going to have to obtain another attorney. Have they thought of who they want to use?" Gilman said. Then, Gilman helps them decide how to proceed.

Van Goor said the transition's difficulty often relates to how well an attorney was doing his or her job.

"If the office has not been run well, correspondence hasn't been opened, calls haven't been returned then the trustee might have a quite a job."

Gilman said the region's tight-knit legal community has eased the process.

"We're all pretty close. We have a very good active bar association, which is well managed, so everybody keeps in contact pretty well," Gilman said. "When we have cases against each other we litigate hard, but we can all act as gentleman or lady attorneys.

"We're very cordial here and that makes it a nice place to practice law."